Feds Place 50 'Border' Children in Wisconsin; GOP Lawmakers Object

Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility, on June 18, 2014, in Brownsville,Texas. Brownsville and Nogales, Ariz. have been central to processing the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the country illegally since Oct. 1.

Credit Getty Images

The Office of Refugee Resettlement reports placing 50 children, who arrived at the southern border without parents, at undisclosed locations in Wisconsin.

Immigration offices have been overwhelmed by the thousands of children coming to the U.S. border, especially from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Many say they are fleeing gangs and violence.

Shortly after the federal agency released a state-by-state breakdown on Thursday, showing where it has sent some of the children, four Wisconsin legislators released a letter, asking the Dept. of Homeland Security not to place refugee children in Wisconsin.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and three Republican colleagues - Reps. Joel Kleefisch, John Nygren and David Craig say Wisconsin must take care of its own first, and not give priority to unaccompanied children who illegally entered the country.

Contents of the letter include:

"While we understand this situation requires compassion, we believe it is in the best interest of the minors to be relocated near our nation's southern border, allowing for prompt reunification of families."

"As elected officials in Wisconsin, we are beyond frustrated that the administration is neglecting its obligation to uphold the law while failing to provide adequate information to state officials."

"Another concern is that the "temporary" relocation is actually a permanent one that will undoubtedly cause a significant drain on local and state budgets impacting public education and public health systems."

"There are also questions about the health status and whether local health officials have been alerted to the potential health risks in their communities."

In Milwaukee, the federal government had asked the group Catholic Charities if it could secure resources, in the event 'border children' were placed here. Madison city officials were working to identify a building there, that could be used to temporarily house children.

The federal system needs time to conduct hearings for each, to determine whether they should be placed with families in the U.S. or deported.

Some of the immigrant children crossing the border say they are being subjected to abusive and inhumane treatment in U.S. Border Patrol stations in South Texas. This includes frigid holding rooms, sleep deprivation, verbal and psychological abuse, inadequate food and water, denial of medical care, and worse.

Dozens of children have come forward to make complaints against Customs and Border Protection officers. The agency responds that any complaints are the result not of mistreatment, but of its stations being overwhelmed by the surge of minors.

Divergent plans are now emerging from the House and Senate on how best to deal with the influx of unaccompanied children from Central America across the border.

Though both would offer the president less money than he asked for to deal with the crisis, a major battle has developed over whether to amend a 2008 law that makes it harder to speedily deport the children.

Close to 60,000 children have crossed illegally into the U.S. since last October. They've sparked a crisis. But is it a humanitarian crisis or a public health one?

The children carry "swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus, and tuberculosis," and can spread the diseases to the U.S., wrote Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., a retired obstetrician-gynecologist, in a July 7 letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since October, a staggering 57,000 unaccompanied migrant children have been apprehended at the southwestern U.S. border. Sometimes, they've been welcomed into the country by activists; other times they've been turned away by protesters.

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